Carlson said no, I wasn’t to touch a thing. This Laundromat was, after all, a crime scene, and everything within it was potential evidence.
Nuts.
I noticed Crystal’s graphic novel was still on the floor in front of the machine I could not get going, and I made an executive decision that it would not be covered by Carlson’s edict on evidence. I was pleased it hadn’t been damaged in any way. No blood, no broken glass, no water from a bullet-riddled washer.
It had fallen open somewhere in the middle. The cartoon Crystal had evidently, at some point, left her bedroom and wandered into an alley of some dark, dangerous Gotham-like city, lured in by the voice of her grandfather. Clutched in her arm was a teddy bear with one missing arm.
The bubble above the girl’s head said: “I’ll find you! I’ll find you!”
But it was something else, something other than what Crystal had drawn, that caught my eye as I leaned over to pick up the book.
The back of the preceding page was a handwritten letter.
The handwriting was small, meticulous, easily decipherable, and filled most of the page. There was no date at the top.
It began Dear Lucy.
It concluded with All my love, your father.
I set the letter on top of the washer and read it from beginning to end.
And then I said, “Holy shit.”
Sixty-three
Duckworth struggled to his feet, watched as Peter Blackmore’s car disappeared up the street.
“Goddamn it,” he said, rubbing the back of his head where it had hit the curb. Felt blood. He looked at his hand, reached into his pocket with his other hand for a tissue to wipe it off.
He got out his phone.
“Yeah, it’s Duckworth. I need to put out an APB.”
He gave the dispatcher complete details about Blackmore’s car, including the plate number. Duckworth also provided a description of the driver.
“Officers should approach with caution, but I do not believe this man to be armed. But he is wanted for questioning in more than one homicide. I also need someone to go to Thackeray, find the head of security, a guy named Clive Duncomb — yeah, that’s right, the one who shot that kid — and stick with him until they hear from me. Where’s Carlson?”
The dispatcher said the new detective was taking statements about a shooting in a Laundromat.
“Jesus,” Duckworth said, and hung up.
The phone was back in his pocket for only five seconds when it started to ring.
“Yeah?” he said, expecting more questions from the dispatcher.
“Barry?”
A woman’s voice.
Rhonda Finderman.
“Yeah, Chief, hi.”
“Have you heard what that son of a bitch Finley is saying about me?”
“This isn’t a good time,” he said.
“I’ll just bet it isn’t,” she said. “Where would he get something like that? That I’d taken my eye off the ball, that I’m at fault for not seeing a connection between the Fisher and Gaynor homicides? Far as I know, you’re the only person who’s come to me suggesting there is a connection. So where the hell else might he get an idea like that?”
“Chief, I’ll tell you—”
“You already told me Finley was sniffing around. Trying to dig up dirt on me, to use it against me for his comeback. If he didn’t get this from you, who’d he get it from? Carlson? Was it Angus Carlson? If it is, I swear, I’ll have him writing parking tickets for the rest of his natural life. I knew I’d made a mistake, moving him up to detective.”
“Not Carlson,” Duckworth said.
“Jesus, Barry, you gotta be kidding—”
“Chief — Rhonda — I’m in pursuit of a suspect. I have to—”
“No, hang on. You told that bastard—”
Duckworth ended the call, put the phone back into his pocket. He got into his car and took off after Blackmore.
Professor Peter Blackmore struggled to get out his own phone as he drove randomly through the streets of Promise Falls. Glancing back and forth between the road and his phone, he called up a number and entered it.
He had the phone to his ear. One ring, two rings. Then:
“What is it, Peter?”
“Clive, she’s dead!”
“What?” Duncomb said.
“Miriam’s dead!”
“You’re out of your mind,” the security chief said. “Peter, you need to accept what happened. Georgina was killed at the drive-in. Miriam wasn’t. I spoke to her. You were there. I spoke to her and she’s fine.”
“After!” he shouted into the phone. “She was killed after!”
“What the hell are you saying? Where are you?”
“Someone went to the house after you talked to her. That’s when it happened.”
“Where are you getting this from? Who told you this?”
“Duckworth! I just saw him!”
Duncomb was quiet on the other end of the line.
“Clive?”
“I’m here.”
“It was you, wasn’t it?” Peter said.
“What?”
“You killed her.”
“Why the hell would I kill Miriam?”
“Maybe she had something on you. Something more than a video with Olivia Fisher on it. Something about you and Liz, that’d be my bet. Maybe something from when you were in Boston. Was it something like that?”
“You’ve lost it, Peter. You want to lay this on me, but you’re the one who was out all night. The one who shows up this morning with blood on him. What was your reason? Why’d you kill her? Because it wasn’t her in that car with Adam? Because she was the one who should have died anyway, and not Georgina?”
“No! That’s not what happened!”
“What did you tell him?” Clive asked.
“What?”
“What’d you tell Duckworth?”
Blackmore didn’t speak for several seconds. Finally, “Nothing.”
“Bullshit,” Duncomb said. “What did you tell him?”
“Nothing. I didn’t tell him a thing,” the professor lied, struggling to compose himself. “But he had questions about you.”
“Like what?”
“This isn’t something I should talk about on the phone.”
“Jesus, you accuse me of killing Miriam, but suddenly you can’t discuss stuff on the phone.”
“It’s complicated,” Blackmore said. “Where are you?”
“I went to the bank. I’m downtown, on Claymore. I can meet you.”
“Just stay there. Be out front. I’ll pick you up.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m five minutes away, if that. I’ll tell you everything when I see you.” Blackmore ended the call, tossed the phone onto the seat next to him, cranked the wheel hard, and pulled a U-turn, nearly cutting off a Finley Springs truck.
When he was getting back on his feet, and touching his hand to the back of his head, Duckworth had noticed Blackmore’s car making a right turn before it had disappeared from view.
Once he’d hung up on Rhonda Finderman — a move Duckworth predicted would see him, instead of Carlson, writing parking tickets until the end of time — and dropped in behind the wheel, he took off in the same direction, but there was no sign of Blackmore on the street he’d turned down.
Duckworth’s foot was heavy on the accelerator. At each cross street, he glanced quickly in both directions. He hoped, now that all Promise Falls cruisers had been alerted, someone would spot the professor’s car.
Where would the man go? Duckworth wondered. Home? Back to the college? Those would be the first two places the police would look for him.